The beauty of the internet is such that every opinion has become worthless; this goes doubly so for those with publish buttons on (relatively, we're humble) major websites. For every opinion, there's a matching counter-opinion, and that's great. Yesterday, we linked to an article by Mark Pilgrim about tinkerers and the iPad, and of course, someone was bound to disagree with that one.

Have you lost all connection with reality? "Most users support locking down consumer devices?" So, if I asked Random Joe Computer User if he'd like to control his own computer, he'd say, "Oh, God, no! If I controlled my computer, I'd just pirate things! Please, take away my ability to load software on it, or change any of its settings."

I'm not talking about computers, I'm talking about consumer devices.

People who buy game consoles don't want pirates and freeloaders playing games that they didn't purchase. Since the vast majority plans on purchasing legal games for their system they have no problem with locking out non-approved games.

The same is true for cell phones. If you give people a choice between phone A that won't get malware but requires you to purchase apps from the company store or phone B that allows installation any app most people will choose phone A.

They're consumer devices and people expect them to have limited functionality.